


my fellow passerine

by Schistosity



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Almyra (Fire Emblem), Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route Spoilers, Gen, I get navel-gazey and emo in this but what's new aye?, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Racism, Worldbuilding, and does nothing with that information except freak the fuck out, in which cyril knows who claude is the whole time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24625273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schistosity/pseuds/Schistosity
Summary: Then the Alliance delegation shows up, and their offering strolls through the gates of the monastery like he already owns the place.A reminder, for those who need it: Cyril is not an idiot. He has good eyes and he uses them.An observation, for those who want it: The Golden Deer house leader is Almyran.~Cyril knows a lot more than he lets on, Claude is far less covert than he thinks he is, and messing with the guy your parents told you was a possibly-unkillable demon-prince isn’t usually supposed to earn you a lasting friendship but hey… life is already pretty damn weird.
Relationships: Cyril & Claude von Riegan
Comments: 122
Kudos: 544





	1. nock & draw

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Passerine](https://open.spotify.com/track/4dHwaxPb66oOFA2WC3CQoW?si=x1huRVs1R2CJ9FsUWMgt2A) by The Oh Hellos
> 
> Got a comment on another fic that reminded me I had this 90% finished in my drafts so I did this instead of studying. Cool. Anyway I really love these two and the lack of a full support chain for them is criminal. I think they're neat and their potential connection with each other embodied a lot of interesting yet half-formed themes that would have been interesting.
> 
> Anyway welcome to my genuine "Cyril knew who Claude was the entire time" conspiracy manifesto. Now with actual feelings.

Cyril is not many things. The most important things he is not, are, in order: a kid, an idiot, and a narc.

He is fourteen but he’s not a kid. He’s seen more in his fourteen years than he suspects most of the young nobles about to flood the monastery have seen in far longer. He can’t read but he’s not an idiot; he has good eyes and he uses them, and he is alive because he sees things before they see him. He is loyal to Lady Rhea but he’s not a narc; he keeps his mouth shut when business isn’t his and keeps his nose out of it.

Usually.

He’s being tempted, a little, right now.

The new house leaders arrive early at the beginning of the Lone Moon and Cyril watches them cross the threshold from an upstairs window. The delegation from the Empire drops a short girl with a straight back and impossibly pale hair on the doorstep and is followed by the Kingdom delegation throwing a tall boy with silvered armour and hair the colour of wheat to her side. They hold themselves like royalty, so Cyril thinks they might be. He doesn’t know their names, but he knows the kind of people who hold themselves like these two do and he resolves to never speaking with them if he can help it.

Then the Alliance delegation shows up, and their offering strolls through the gates of the monastery like he already owns the place.

A reminder, for those who need it: Cyril is not an idiot. He has good eyes and he uses them.

An observation, for those who want it: The Golden Deer house leader is Almyran. 

(Or, at least, Cyril _thinks_ he is. From this distance? He’s maybe seventy-percent sure.)

The boy, shorter than the other boy but taller than the girl, drifts forward like a snake in the grass. He throws arms around the other leaders’ shoulders—whispers something that makes the girl shrug him off and turn up her nose and the other boy blush a deep red. He laughs.

Cyril just _stares_ in… abject horror, maybe? An Almyran representing the Alliance? Has he slipped into some kind of upside-down nightmare realm? Did he hit his head when he got out of bed this morning? Is he _dead?_

There are little things that burn uncertainty into Cyril’s mind. The boy’s skin is darker than his two peers’, sure, and his hair is thick, brown, and curly like Cyril’s, but his frame is slight, like so many northern Fódlan boys, rather than the stocky teenagers Cyril knew in the home country.

He reminds Cyril of a boy in his company back in Almyra. His name had been Malik, and Cyril uses past tense when he remembers Malik because he’s quite sure he’s not alive now. Not because he would have been killed in the line of duty, though; Malik had been a cook’s assistant banned from service for his ‘questionable loyalties’, after all. No. Malik will be dead because Malik’s skin was on the paler side, like this boy’s is. Malik will surely be dead because the nicest thing anyone ever deigned to call him was ‘mixed’ and the worst thing they ever called him makes Cyril’s skin crawl when he remembers it.

Cyril knows he’s probably the only person for miles that would call the Alliance boy below him ‘pale’. But that’s just because if they were in Almyra, Cyril knows the boy swathed in black and gold would stand out like smooth quartz on a dark riverbed. In that same way, though, next to the prince and princess with their skin like fresh snow, he stands out like tannin stain on white sand.

He straddles that same delicate knife’s edge Malik had straddled of not really looking like anyone, of not fitting any mould at all—or perhaps trying to fit too many at once. But it still stirs something inside Cyril to see even a hint of that complexion—he’d been pretty sure he wasn’t ever going to see it again.

The light catches the glint of a single earring in the boy’s left ear as the trio walk inside.

(Cyril is at least seventy-five percent sure.)

Another reminder: Cyril is not a narc; he minds his own business.

An addendum to the previous reminder: That doesn’t automatically mean he’s not interested.

He doesn’t see the leaders enough for the rest of the day for him to learn their names, but he does spy the Almyran (?) boy a handful of times. It’s enough for him to see the braid (the _war braid,_ he’s almost _positive_ ) by his ear and knock his internal sure-ness percentage up to ninety-percent… maybe ninety-five.

There’s still doubt in Cyril’s mind, but it all but vanishes the first time he speaks to the boy.

It’s three days after the leaders arrived and Cyril has succeeded in keeping out of their way for the most part. But fate is cruel, and it’s while Cyril is sweeping the steps of the cathedral that fate jumps him and throws him in front of a speeding carriage.

“Hey! Are you Cyril?”

He almost drops his broom as he jumps. The voice comes from behind him, which is concerning, because Cyril is usually more aware of his surroundings than most.

He pushes that aside and spins around, taking a big step back from the Golden Deer leader, who is shining there in his dorky looking half-cape with a confidence that almost makes Cyril feel like _he’s_ the one intruding, rather than the other way around.

“Yeah?” Cyril snaps. “What d’you want?”

Cyril doesn’t want to talk to him at all, which is why he replies so rudely. Because maybe he’ll leave if he’s rude. Because the only thing Cyril wants to talk to less than an Almyran is the heir to the country that made him an orphan, and this boy is apparently somehow— _somehow_ —both.

But the boy just smiles. There’s something a little blank in it.

From here, as close to the Golden Deer leader as Cyril has ever been, he can see the touches of his homeland in him even clearer, his dark skin and thick hair and long lashes. The braid, swinging like a pendulum with its glittering bead. But there’s touches of… not-Almyra, too. His eyes are green, piercing, like bottle glass. Cyril hadn’t ever seen eyes that colour before coming to Fódlan with its candy-coloured people.

“I heard you’re from Almyra,” he says, and Cyril’s stomach does a little flip at the way _Almyra_ rolls off his tongue like honey. The doubt fades again in the face of how _well_ he says the name of a country no one from the Alliance should have any business saying with such care.

“Yeah,” he says, maybe a little too strongly. “I live here now though.”

“I can see that.” It’s not entirely nice, but it’s not entirely unkind either. It just… _is_. Cyril doesn’t like how much uncertainty this conversation has packed up and brought along with it. He doesn’t like not being able to tell if the boy’s smile is real or not.

“Why do you care?” He asks.

“I’m from the Alliance, is that not reason enough?” The boy doesn’t sound genuine at all, but Cyril still can’t be sure.

“Sure,” Cyril counters. “But usually the Golden Deer kids like to push me around, not talk to me.”

That seems to get him to pause, just for a moment, and that smile Cyril can’t crack falters.

“Really? Well, uh, I’m not going to do that to you.”

“Cool. Wanna tell your classmates that when they show up?”

“I will,” the boy says. “I really did just want to say hi.”

“Do you ‘say hi’ to all the staff?” Cyril snaps back dryly. He doesn’t like this conversation, even if this guy is a little nicer than the usual Deer.

Oh, _great_ , the smile is back.

“Only to the staff that seem interesting,” the boy says, twirling his braid like he’s expecting Cyril to call him out on it.

Cyril doesn’t take the bait. “Well, _I_ only talk to _students_ that seem interesting.”

This earns him a snort and, though the conversation is clearly dead in the water, neither of them makes a move to leave immediately. Cyril ends up leaving first and only realises later that he hadn’t caught the boy’s name.

The rest of the students arrive a week later, and Cyril learns three important things about the Golden Deer house. These things are, in order: They have a Goneril with them, the Almyran boy’s name is Claude von Riegan (which isn’t very Almyran, so, ninety-two percent), and none of the other students seem to suspect he’s Almyran. At all.

Cyril finds out this is in no small part due to the efforts of Claude himself, who almost effortlessly pushes back any questions of his background with a laugh and a smile as gilded in gold as him.

The only person who _really_ seems to take issue with him is a purple-haired boy whose name Cyril is forced to learn after he runs into him during stable duty. Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, owner of the worst name Cyril has ever heard, seems convinced Claude is “hiding something” but isn’t sure what.

Cyril wonders if he should be offended that the sons and daughters of the Alliance can’t seem to be able to identify a citizen of their eastern rival. He doesn’t have enough national pride to really care, so he settles on simply being confused.

No one notices. If they do notice, they’re damn good at keeping their mouth shut.

But _Cyril_ notices—in part due to the fact he’s probably the only person at the monastery who knows _what_ he’s looking for.

Claude’s style of archery is one thing. It’s barely distinct enough for anyone to call it anything other than a quirk, but Cyril served in the border army and he knows what an Almyran draw looks like like the back of his hand. Ninety-seven percent.

He sees how he goes to mass with the other students but never prays. How he stubs his toe on a desk in front of Cyril once and cries for numerous _Gods_ rather that the _Goddess_ whose roof he stands under. Ninety-nine percent.

But he’s not like Petra-from-Brigid or Dedue-from-Duscur, both of whom Cyril is terrified by for wildly different reasons but learns the names of anyway because they’re different like him. No. Claude-from-Leicester-but-also-probably-definitely-Almyra is more reserved.

It becomes clear to Cyril that he’s _hiding_ , but more than that he’s _playing a side_. It’s that knife’s edge again, the one Malik walked.

He hadn’t ever been close to Malik, but he hadn’t hated him and that was, in the end, almost the same thing. When Cyril had come to Fódlan and he’d experienced the pangs of distrust towards outsiders, he’d understood Malik a little more. In that way, he thinks he understands Claude a little too.

So, Cyril almost opens up to him. _Almost_.

A note on Cyril: He is stubborn and a little standoffish, but he is not unkind, and he remembers enough about Malik to know that Claude is probably hurting.

A note on Claude: He is hurting, quite a bit, and has been for his entire life, but he has grown up being told he can never let other people know that. 

A note on both: Cyril hates liars. Claude is the most dishonest person he will ever meet.

“Actually,” says Claude one day, a month or so into the school year, “I wanted to talk to you about Rhea.”

Cyril narrows his eyes. When he’d run into Claude during chores today this wasn’t the conversation he’d expected to be having. It isn’t a conversation he _wants_ to be having. Not with Claude, at any rate.

He knows how his attachment to Lady Rhea looks to others. He knows exactly what it would like to the people he grew up with.

Cyril doesn’t know Claude. He doesn’t know how much of his heart lies beyond the Throat. But what he does know is, right now, there’s a dishonesty and cocky confidence in the older boy that reminds him so starkly of the men who commanded him in Almyra. Does Claude foster the same hatred for Fódlan as them? Is his interest in Lady Rhea anything more than the interest of an enemy?

Cyril will let Claude disrespect him, but he won’t let him disrespect the woman he owes his life to.

“There's so much we don't know about her,” Claude is saying, “but I thought maybe you—”

“Yeah,” Cyril cuts him off. “I know more about Lady Rhea than anyone, but why should I tell you anything about her?”

Claude laughs humourlessly. “So cold,” he says. “Think about who you’re talking to.”

Whatever Cyril had expected Claude to say it hadn’t been _that_. What the fuck was _that_ supposed to mean?

“What are you to me?” Cyril has to physically stop himself from spitting the words.

Claude’s smile fades. “You… don’t know who I am?”

The tension… falters… for just a moment. Cyril’s next retort dies in on his tongue and apparently Claude’s does to. It’s an odd, staggered moment, where they both just stare at each other and the air is filled with the ambience of the monastery and nothing else.

 _Know who he is?_ Cyril thinks. _What? Like know he’s the heir to the Alliance? Is that a threat? How is that even relevant?_

So, he answers truthfully:

“Of course I do. You’re Claude. Leader of the Leicester Alliance.”

 _Or whatever._ That’s all he cares to know about Claude, at any rate.

But two things become abundantly clear to Cyril the moment his response leaves his mouth. The first is that somehow—and he doesn’t know how—that was the _wrong_ _answer_.

Claude’s carefully controlled expression shifts just for a second, his eyes widening a fraction and his lips pulling down at the corners almost imperceptibly.

_How was that the wrong answer? What did he expect me to say?_

The second thing that become clear to Cyril is that Claude is a bigger, more practiced liar than he ever could have imagined.

In an instant the smile is back.

“Well, never mind then,” Claude says with a wave of his hand. “Tell me, don't you ever miss your homeland?"

Cyril blinks.

"Almyra?"

Claude raises an eyebrow.

"Yes, Almyra,” he confirms slowly, and then he cocks his head. “Judging by that expression, I'm guessing you're not _terribly_ homesick."

Cyril feels annoyance bubble in his throat, annoyance at the masks Claude slips on with no feeling. How is he supposed to trust him if he won’t stop hiding? Diverting and changing the subject with the swiftness of a river?

Cyril wants to stagger him, wants to make him stumble in the way only he can. He wants to crack those gilded smiles.

"Life was a whole lot harder for me there than it's ever been around here,” he says, and he hopes it’s the answer Claude _doesn’t_ want. “My dad and mom both died in the war, and there was nobody there to look after me."

Claude’s lips form a thin line. He goes still. But Cyril is too wrapped up in his own overflowing story to read too far into the minute changes in his audience’s expression

"The king... he didn't do anything to help. So I survived by being smart. I had to stop being a kid real quick."

He looks at the ground.

Fuck. He doesn’t want to talk about this. Why is he talking about this?

"I'm sorry to hear that.”

Cyril looks up. Claude looks back.

He looks _sad_.

Cyril almost laughs. "You don't have to apologise. It's not your fault."

"Regardless of whose fault it is, I'm still sorry,” Claude shrugs. “I'm sorry that I didn't even know that an acquaintance of mine was suffering. And sorry for asking a tactless question about your homeland. I should have known that was likely to bring back bad memories."

There’s tension again, but it’s different than before. It’s tension born of Claude’s tone—more serious than Cyril’s ever heard him.

He almost feels like he needs to console him.

“Nah. I get sad or mad when I think about it,” he explains, not really thinking. He’s more focused on Claude’s face, bent into forms of odd sympathy he hadn’t expected. “But I'm used to it. I don't mind any."

Claude shakes his head. "Even still, I apologize for being careless."

Cyril huffs. Nobles were so _weird_ with their drawn-out niceties.

"Okay, well.... Thanks, Claude” he says, as way to hopefully end the back-and-forth. “If the king of Almyra was like you, maybe things would've been better. Maybe the king's not a bad person and just had other stuff to worry about, but that's not much of an excuse."

Claude's smile is strangely tight. “If I ever meet the King of Almyra, I'll give him a stern talking to on your behalf."

He cracks a proper smile, and Cyril realises it’s a joke, probably. So he laughs, because it _is_ a funny idea—the heir to the Alliance and a turncoat orphan, however Almyran they might be, are less likely to get the ear of the king than just about anyone.

"Yeah, okay," he laughs. "Anyway, I gotta get back to work. Buncha things to get done."

“You’re really on the other side now, aren’t you?” Claude says abruptly.

Cyril laughter falls away. He meets Claude’s green, green eyes as the words hit him like a horse at full gallop.

_One-hundred percent._

He tries not to talk to Claude alone too much, after that.

They’re halfway through the school year when the other shoe drops, which is interesting because Cyril hadn’t even known there _was_ another shoe, so he hadn’t been expecting it.

He’s in the library with Lysithea, who is teaching him his letters. She’s the only person he’ll let do it, because there’s this unlikely kinship between them and he’s never had something like that before, but he knows he likes it.

She’s teaching him to read phonetically and has taken to tossing tomes of family trees at him. She’d settled on showing him the Alliance ones first, citing that it would be better to practice on the people he knew best, as well as ‘Blaiddyd’ and ‘Hresvelg’ being too much to ask anyone to try and spell on their first try. 

He opens the most recent tome to a random page, and flicks through until he finds a sound he recognises.

“O… Or-de-lee-ah?” He sounds the letters out. “Oh! Is this your family—”

Lysithea has her hand slammed on the page before Cyril can read anymore.

“Ah! Yes, but, uh, no.” She looks uncharacteristically nervous. “Let’s read another one, shall we?”

“Uh, okay?”

Lysithea flips to the next entry, maybe a little to violently, and peers down at the pages.

The text is loopy and scrawled. Cyril can really only parse the letter ‘R’ from a glance. But that’s okay, because the delicate lines of a crescent moon at the top of the page tell him exactly what family it is.

“Oh! This is okay,” Lysithea says, sounding relieved. “Here. This is House Riegan—Huh, Claude’s not in it—it doesn’t look like it’s been updated in ages but…”

Lysithea’s eyes skirt around the page before settling on a name. She turns the book around.

“Try… hmm… Try this one,” she says, pointing to one of the loopy cursive names on the tree. “This is Claude’s mother, I think. It’s an easier one to pronounce.”

Cyril peers down at the words, letting the letters piece together sounds in his head.

“Tee—Tia—Tiana?”

The name falls from his lips and hits him like a punch to the gut.

“Great!” Lysithea says, oblivious to the way Cyril is now sitting frozen in place. “You don’t have to draw the ‘tee’ sound out so much, but that’s pretty much it! Now try this one…”

Cyril has never done a puzzle before, because they look like they take a long time and he’s a very busy person, but he thinks this might be what it feels like to finish one—to click in the final tile and complete the image of a castle or a dog or a forest or whatever, and step back and see the whole thing.

This puzzle’s image is Claude, with his dark skin that’s not quite as dark as Cyril’s and his green eyes and his archery and his hair and his _Gods_ and his—

 _Pinched eyebrows. His disbelieving eyes. “You… don’t know who I am?” he asks. Cyril calls him Claude. Cyril gives the_ wrong _answer._

And the strange look in his eyes after that?

Cyril finally realises it had been _relief._

A recollection: While Cyril had only ever _met_ one person with both Fódlani and Almyran blood, he’d _known_ of one more.

A name: Khalid.

The King’s youngest and alleged favourite son, despite the rumours surrounding him. His mother is the Queen of Almyra, the Favoured Wife of the King; The Western Shrike, Tiana, the Great Storm that crossed the Throat.

Tiana _von_ _Riegan_ , apparently.

Oh Gods. Oh—

He’d called him an idiot. To his _face_.

“I—I have to go,” Cyril blurts out. Lysithea looks up at him, confusion apparent.

“Huh? Why so suddenly?”

“I have, uh, chores.”

“Oh. Okay?”

He stands up, his chair scooting across the floor with an awful screeching noise, and he bolts for the door.

Oh shit, this is—

Cyril isn’t even out the door when he runs directly into the last person in the world he would want to run into right now, knocking both himself and the person to the ground, along with the startlingly high stack of books they’d been carrying.

Cyril goes pale as Claude—no—as _Prince Khalid al-Almyra, The Undying_ , fourth son of King Hasan, Blood of the Sun Throne, falls on his ass and starts to choke.

Cyril, absolutely staggered both physically and emotionally, offers only an: “Oh, sh—Claude? Are you okay?” He doesn’t move to help him—not that he would in a regular situation, but this time it can be chalked up to raw shock rather than indifference.

 _Khalid_ raises a finger in a ‘hold on a second’ motion and gives himself one or two good smacks to the chest. He stops choking on whatever he’d had in his mouth and starts to laugh.

“ _Gods_ , Cyril,” he wheezes. “You could kill a guy like that.”

He coughs again.

Something to note: Cyril is not an idiot, but he does care about the rules, and sometimes that cancels out the first thing.

Cyril notices the apple on the ground and realises the reason Khalid had started choking.

“Wait—were you bringing _food_ into the library?”

“Uh, yeah?” Khalid says.

“You’re not supposed to eat in here,” Cyril retorts before he can stop, voice sharp. “You wouldn’t have choked if you’d followed the rules.”

The voice in the back of Cyril’s head that is usually quite reasonable starts to scream at him after that. _You can’t just_ say _that to him,_ it yells. _What are you thinking? That’s the prince of fucking Al—_

Khalid just starts laughing again.

“You’re a regular prison warden, Cyril. Fine, I’ll throw it out.”

He picks the apple off the ground, takes another bite (gross) and tosses it across the room into a wastebasket at the other side of the library. It’s needlessly showy—Cyril feels a twinge of annoyance despite his hammering heart.

“Claude!” Cyril hears Lysithea screech from around the corner. “Is that you making a mess?!”

Khalid chuckles. “Yep!” he calls. “Didn’t scare you, did I?”

The only response is some loud spluttering.

Cyril shifts into autopilot, gathering Khalid’s dropped books in hands he’s trying hard not to let tremble. He freezes, both in body and in spiralling mind, as two soft-palmed hands lay themselves on his wrists.

“Hey, come on now Cyril, it’s fine,” Khalid says, gently prying the younger boy’s hands away. “I’ve got this.”

“But I—I ran into you. Plus it’s my job.”

Khalid scoffs good-naturedly. “To what? To pick up every single book in a library that already has a librarian?” He says. It sounds a bit stupid when he says it like that. “Don’t worry, you looked like you had somewhere to be, right? Don’t let me keep you.”

He smiles. Cyril looks away.

Cyril actually _doesn’t_ have anywhere to be. He’d been intending to return to his room, where he was planning to scream into a pillow for the next few hours about how, for the last several months, he’d been openly treating the Prince of Almyra like an everyday nuisance. To his face.

The real reason he wants to help, of course, is that Cyril doesn’t want to owe him anything. Doubly so now. Because before it would have been him owing something to the heir to the country that had killed his parents, but now it would be that as well as owing something to the son of the man who had left him to be forced into service, the blood of the dynasty that had neglected an orphan and left him to rot.

A follow-up to an earlier point: There are many things Cyril is not (a narc, a kid, an idiot), but there are also many things Cyril _is_. One of those things is _ever so slightly vindictive_.

A realisation: The king has never cared about people like Cyril, and now Cyril has been presented with the perfect opportunity to fuck with his son for free

A choice: Cyril is a hard worker, but he’s never been one to turn down a free thing.

“Okay,” Cyril says. He stands up, letting the books he’s gathered fall back into the pile at Khalid—no— _Claude’s_ feet. Claude’s eyes widen a fraction, and Cyril is inclined to agree with the shock, because this is the first time in his stay at the monastery that he’s ever made a mess bigger on purpose. “I’ll see you around then.”

He’s gone before he can see the look on the prince’s face.

Cyril thinks about what he knows about Khalid and what he knows about Claude and tries to reconcile the two of them in his mind.

It’s very hard.

The princes are the subject of intense gossip in Almyra, or at least they had been when Cyril still lived there. He hadn’t paid much attention to the stories that had travelled west from the capital on the trade winds, and now he’s regretting his disinterest a little.

There were four princes in total, three from previous marriages before the King’s current wife had travelled from the west, and one from her. Cyril had been slightly more interested in stories about the youngest prince, Khalid, because Khalid had only been a few years older than him, which was sort of interesting in the same way fun facts about birds or ball-and-cup games were interesting, which is that it was only vaguely more interesting than nothing.

But his parents had quickly told him not to ask questions.

“He’s bad luck, Cyril,” they’d said. “We do not want people to think we support him.”

Khalid had been given the title of ‘The Undying’ before Cyril had been born, which was odd because while Almyrans very much liked giving people dumb titles, they usually didn’t give them to toddlers. It’s a name attributed to the fact he’d allegedly survived at least three separate attempts on his life before he’d even started walking. Some said he was immune to poison, others said he was a demon, tainted by mixed blood and a birth under bad stars.

When Cyril had been six or seven, he’d heard stories that Khalid had killed an assassin single-handedly. Someone had snuck into his room at night to drive a dagger into his heart and Khalid, only ten or eleven himself, had slit his throat—with a dagger, some said, though others swore it was with his own razor-sharp claws—and walked away with little more than scratches. 

Cyril thinks about this as he picks at his lunch, and watches across the hall to where Claude—the Undying Demon Prince of Almyra—is absorbed in seeing how much of Lorenz’s mashed potatoes he can spoon into the poor guy’s book-bag before he notices.

 _Idiot_ , Cyril thinks, stabbing a roast sweet potato with his fork.

Cyril tags along with Hilda to the border to fight his countrymen. It’s stupid, but he does it anyway because he knows what the Gonerils do to child soldiers and he’s not letting what happened to him happen to anyone else.

Claude is mad about the whole thing in general—the mission, Holst’s appointment of Hilda, Cyril wanting to go—which is initially hard to notice because for Claude ‘mad’ just seems to mean ‘quiet’.

He tells the professor he isn’t going and that’s it for a while. It’s it until he corners Cyril before the convoy rolls out to the Throat.

“You’re dead set on going?” He asks, and there’s more to his question than just what he says, so Cyril gives him more of an answer.

“I gotta make sure no one on our side gets any ideas… I don’t… I don’t want a repeat of what happened with me.”

Something passes over Claude’s expression. He looks sad and exasperated, but understanding flickers in his gaze. Cyril knows why he’s not coming, but he’s still surprised to see sympathy.

“Here.” Claude suddenly holds out a sheathed dagger. “I want you to take this. I know you’re not super confident with axes yet, so I want you to have something on you if shit goes sideways.”

Cyril takes a half step back. “I, uh, I couldn’t—”

“Cyril,” Claude says in a heavy voice. “Please. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

And, huh, would you look at that?

He _means_ it.

There’s some etiquette thing about gift-giving that Cyril doesn’t know—perhaps he had been too young to be taught. He thinks this moment might be something significant, like he’s supposed to use a specific hand or refuse it first or say some sort of call and response, but he can’t remember.

So he just takes it, in the end, and draws it. It’s nothing special, just a typical iron dagger with a bone hilt. What strikes him about it is that it’s obviously _worn_.

It’s obviously _used_.

_They say prince Khalid killed the assassin himself, slit his throat with a dagger and walked away healthier than he’d started—_

“Is this yours?” Cyril asks.

“It’s yours now,” Claude says with a thin smile. He doesn’t stick around to wave them goodbye.

Cyril doesn’t end up having to use the dagger, but he can’t decide whether that’s a good thing or not.

On one hand, it means he hadn’t been backed into a corner. It means they’d been victorious. But on the other hand it meant he had been pretty good at killing people before they got close to him. He’d been pretty good at killing.

To the surprise of probably no one but himself, Cyril returns from the Throat more confused and scared and angry than he had arrived.

He knows he should talk to Claude—to Khalid—he needs to talk to someone who has the barest hope of understanding him.

But he doesn’t.

He waits. He waits too long.

War is announced and the church shakes to its foundations—the most constant home Cyril has known since his first looks ready to tear itself apart. He hates it. He doesn’t know how he can help—he’s just one person, one useless little boy…

But there are people who don’t see him that way. People who want to help.

They’re at the training grounds when things come to a head.

Claude has one hand on Cyril’s bent elbow and the other resting in the space between his shoulder blades. His touch is light—barely there—but there’s a force behind it.

Claude presses his back a little harder.

“Remember this feeling, alright?” Claude’s voice is firm in his ear. “When you start flagging, you bring your elbow too far forward. That’s a flaw you can work on.”

Claude pulls Cyril’s elbow back slowly, lining it up with his outstretched arm, and Cyril feels his shoulder blades come together on the sides on Claude’s hand.

“Remember how far I’m pulling,” Claude says. “I want you to imagine my hand on your back and try to hold it there with just your shoulders.”

He lets go, leaving Cyril frozen in the new position.

“Don’t freak out,” Claude says. “I know you’re tired but that’s when you need to be more focused than ever. Breathe. Release.”

Cyril feels Claude’s phantom touch on his back and concentrates on it. He breathes out, holds, then fires.

The arrow flies true, piercing the centre ring of the target.

Cyril lets the tension slip from his shoulders and Claude gives him an encouraging pat on the back.

“Great job, buddy! Gimme one more.”

Cyril nocks and draws again, and Claude’s hands dance out over his arms, deft fingers adjusting his placement on the grip and the twist of his fingers on the string. He’s showing him a new draw—the kind Cyril might have learned if he’d stayed in the army.

He doesn’t want to think about the fact the hands that guide him, that raise his elbow up and press the space between his shoulder blades and applaud him when he lands a bullseye, are the hands of the king’s son.

Claude leans around to gauge his pupil’s eyeline, and Cyril feels the soft brush of the older boy’s braid on his cheek.

“Are you going to cut it off?” He asks quietly. Abruptly.

Claude pulls back and drops his hands. “What?”

“Your braid. She’s declared war,” Cyril says. He lowers his bow.

Claude is silent for a long time, and Cyril doesn’t dare turn around.

“Not on me specifically,” Claude says quietly. “I haven’t accepted her challenge. Not yet.”

That’s when Cyril braves it.

He turns and is met for the first time with the cold eyes of the Prince Khalid from scary stories and nightmares, the one with claws and fangs and flesh that cannot be cut by common blades. His gaze is sharp, like cut glass.

Cyril sucks in a short breath, holds it. “I’m sorry.”

He watches as Claude’s gaze softens as quickly as it hardened.

“No, I—don’t apologise, Cyril,” he says softly. “How long have you known I’m Almyran? I wondered if you knew… but…”

“A while,” Cyril admits. “Wasn’t hard when I sorta know what to look for.”

Claude sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I guess if anyone was going to figure it out it would be you, huh?”

 _I also know you’re a prince,_ Cyril thinks, but he remembers how relieved Claude had looked when he hadn’t figured it out earlier, and Cyril doesn’t want to rock that specific boat, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“Kinda stupid to think I wouldn’t,” he says instead.

Claude laughs. “Yeah. I can be a bit of an idiot sometimes, can’t I?”

“Yeah.”

They fall into silence, and Cyril becomes acutely aware of how alone they are in the training grounds. It feels private here, in the early hours of the morning before the Lions bluster in to tear it apart. It feels like they could talk about anything.

Cyril knows he could speak in Almyran now, if he wanted to. But he doesn’t, and he knows it’s as much Claude’s refusal to draw out the mother tongue as his that leaves the space empty

“It’s, uh… It’s long,” Cyril says, gesturing to Claude’s braid. The older boy smiles.

“Bet you never saw ones this long out west,” Claude muses. He toys with the end of the braid, a sour sort of look on his face. “I’ve managed to go a long time, haven’t I?”

All Cyril can find it in himself to do is nod.

Braids in Almyra are worn by young people and grown until they see war for the first time. To cut a braid is to answer a challenge, to take up arms against a foe that has slighted you on a grandiose level. Once cut the hair is never tied the same way again.

Cyril had cut his at eight.

“I guess I’m hoping I won’t have to,” Claude says. “Like, maybe this whole thing is a big misunderstanding, and everything will work out in the end.”

He laughs.

“Makes me sound like a bit of a coward, right?”

“I don’t think it does,” Cyril says. “I don’t think not wanting to go to war makes you a coward, I think it just means you care about stuff besides fighting.”

A preconception: Cyril hates Claude.

A reason for a preconception: Cyril hates the king. Claude is Khalid and Khalid is the king’s son. Claude was allowed to grow his braid long in a golden palace in the sun and wanted for nothing while Cyril’s parents and then his childhood were taken from him.

But Cyril can’t help but think that everyone is missing the point. Everyone seems to forget that Khalid didn’t get the name ‘The Undying’ because he’s a monster. He got the name ‘The Undying’ simply because people hated a little boy so much they tried to murder him in his home while he slept, over and over, and kept fucking it up. And that’s not his fault. It won’t ever be his fault in the same way it’s not Cyril’s fault that the Knights stare daggers at him in training and push him around.

A realisation, belated as it is: Cyril actually doesn’t hate Claude at all.

“Thanks, Cyril,” Claude says gently, “for not telling anyone.”

“I wouldn’t,” Cyril says and means it. “You don’t gotta worry about that.”

Garreg Mach falls.

Lady Rhea and the Professor fall with it.

In the aftermath, among all the haze and rubble, Cyril sees Claude on his knees, eyes red with unshed tears—sees him raise a trembling arrow to the side of his head, one hand on the shaft and the other wrapped around his braid.

Claude jerks the arrowhead forward, slicing clean through the coiled hair in one swift motion. It falls from his fingers to the ground.

A declaration of war. An answered challenge.

Cyril knows he could go talk to him, but he doesn’t.

An irony: It’s the Almyrans that call people from Fódlan cowards, but Cyril feels like, right now, he might be the biggest coward of all.

He does not see Claude for five years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Claude's archery lesson is brought to you by my own childhood archery lessons! We used to imagine holding tennis balls between our shoulders instead of hands, but it's the same philosophy.
> 
> Claude not dying is brought to you by the Crest of Riegan, which Cyril doesn't give two shits about so isn't brought up here! Contrary to a lot of (very cool and valid) fan interpretation, Claude's crest can only activate if he makes an attack, hence why little!khalid was able to kill an assassin and walk off more or less unscathed. Country boyyy.... life force vampiiiire.... I love yooouuu....
> 
> EDIT: I ended up writing the above alluded-to scene for Whumptober 2020, which you can read [here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27016765)


	2. breathe & release

He does not see Claude for five years.

In the meantime, Cyril does a lot of things, important or otherwise. Some of these things are, in order: Get really good at shooting, get _great_ at flying a wyvern, get _awesome_ at shooting while flying a wyvern, and (somehow) not die the entire time he’s doing it.

The most important thing he does: Come home.

They are greeted at the monastery gates, still half in ruin, and are beckoned inside with open arms and though Lady Rhea isn’t here, and the walls Cyril had come to love are broken and battered, it manages to feel like something of a homecoming.

Cyril had once called the Alliance heir—now its leader—gilded, like gold, but seeing him again makes him realise that assessment had come both unearned and too early. _This_ Claude is gilded. He stands there draped in fine silks and golden armour and a wearing a smile that shines brighter than both.

He… looks like a fucking prince, actually, and _boy oh boy_ does Cyril keep _that_ observation to himself. 

“So, you got a beard,” Cyril says instead, when they get a moment to speak alone, because that’s a safer topic than ‘I’ve been keeping the fact you’re a foreign political figure to myself for like five years which is hard because did you know Shamir is really nosy when she wants to be?’.

Claude looks Cyril up and down. “You got taller,” is what he decides to say.

“You… didn’t?” It’s true. They’re pretty much the same height now.

“You look _old_ ,” Claude says, smirking now.

“You look _rich_ ,” Cyril replies dryly. He taps a finger against Claude’s gaudy new pauldron that sparkles like the sun. “What’s even the point of this?”

The older man laughs.

“Well, I have to impress those stuffy nobles some way, don’t I?” His green eyes glimmer.

Cyril still can’t help but think about how impractical it is. He rolls his eyes. 

“This is… nice, though,” he says a little quieter. He waves a hand at the sash around Claude’s waist. He doesn’t want to touch it; it looks high quality.

“Thanks. My father sent it to me,” Claude says, and Cyril tries hard not to flinch, because Claude has no idea that Cyril knows exactly who he means when he says ‘father’ and he wants to keep it that way.

“That must’a taken a lotta work,” Cyril ventures.

“It did, but I think he thought it was worth it,” Claude looks out to the east, where the sun is steadily rising, but Cyril doesn’t think he’s looking in that direction just for the sun. “Sashes are traditional, even if I did come of age outside the home country.”

Sashes are often gifted to young men when they come of age by their fathers, or another older male family member. Cyril had long since come to terms with the fact he would come of age with no one beside him, but it still stings a little to see evidence of Claude’s living family and loving home.

He bites that down. That bitterness. He wants to be past that childish envy—at least when it comes to Khalid, who he long ago came to understand doesn’t entirely deserve it.

“You don’t really seem like someone who cares a whole lot about tradition,” Cyril observes.

“Some traditions are important, though,” Claude counters, and Cyril remembers a braid and an arrowhead and a challenge accepted. “The ones that keep us close to our loved ones and our homes are good. It’s the ones that separate us from others that I’m not the biggest fan of. Don’t you think so?”

It’s crazy how much he agrees. It’s almost like a challenge. It feels like Claude is trying to pull him back to the country he left with placations and compromise, softening it for him, making it shiny and new in his memories—here, so far from any physical reminder of how it _actually_ is.

Claude may be an exception, in some ways, to the image of the warmongering older men that Cyril served with. But he doubts one exceptional person can change the nature of a nation. It probably never will.

It strikes Cyril at some point that, as much as he likes Claude, he’s not entirely sure what kind of person he is.

Things Cyril knows about Claude: He’s messy, he doesn’t sleep as much as he should, he likes spicy food, he’s a prince of an enemy nation and against all fucking odds nobody’s figured it out yet, and he thought haggis was a real animal for a while and hates it when you bring it up.

Things Cyril doesn’t know about Claude: Why the _fuck_ he’s here.

“What did you say?”

Cyril releases, letting his arrow fly true and sink into the center ring of their target. “I said, ‘Why are you still in Fódlan?’. You still have family in Almyra, right?—you, uh, mentioned your dad—It’s not like you can’t go back.”

They no longer train with wooden bows and Claude’s hands guiding Cyril’s form. They train side by side, and Cyril tries really hard not to look at Claude’s freaky new bow, which brims with a kind of flagrant aesthetic overkill that makes him want to kick every Fódlani noble’s ass. Bones? Really? And they call Almyrans barbaric…

Claude is trying to learn to shoot with his off-hand, which means he’s facing Cyril when the question is asked. Cyril gets to see his eyes widen a little in surprise.

Good. Gotta keep him on his toes.

Claude schools his expression. “Right outta the gate with a hard one today, aren’t you?”

Cyril shrugs. “Just making up for a year of you poking your nose into my business. I think I’ve earned it.”

Claude draws back and releases his own arrow, which sinks in a little off centre, close to one of Cyril’s arrows.

“I have things I want to do, and this is where I’m needed,” he answers finally. “I’m not going to abandon my people halfway through a war because I’m a little _scared_.”

The admission of fear feels like bait, so Cyril brushes over it. “ _Your_ people?”

“I’m just as much Fódlani as I am anything else,” Claude says. “This is my home.”

A note on Claude: He is a good liar, but he is telling the truth here. He is bound by inextricable love for places and people that don’t quite love him back, and his hurt has made him determined.

A note on Cyril, whose hurt has made him bitter and scared: He doesn’t believe a word of it.

Things change, though, as things tend to do.

Cyril doesn’t know why he starts guarding the Holy Tomb. He doesn’t do it all the time, just every so often to make sure no one’s gotten any crazy ideas. It’s on one of these chance visits that he encounters Claude.

This has always been the biggest thing he dislikes about Claude. As much as he has come to like the man, his lack of respect for Lady Rhea and the sanctity of things is frustrating.

So, Cyril threatens him. It’s half a joke, really, because he knows he couldn’t take Claude in a fight.

Claude takes it seriously though. He throws his hands up. “Fine, I get it! I'd rather not fight with you.”

“Why is that?” Cyril challenges aloud. He’s interested in the answer.

“Does it matter?”

“Dunno...” Cyril says. “With your status, you could smack me to the ground and walk right over me.”

“I...guess? But I wouldn’t.” Claude sounds incredulous, like the idea of using his power for such a thing had never occurred to him. Cyril doubts it hadn’t, but his expression is oddly earnest.

 _We’re talking about two different kinds of power,_ Cyril ponders. _He doesn’t know I know._

Cyril isn’t threatened by Fódlani dukes, especially not one he’s seen fall out of a tree at least twice.

Cyril is _maybe_ threatened by the abstract concept of princes, though. He’s threatened by the legacies of the people who rule over small folk like him without ever looking them in the eye. He knows Khalid has been hurt in ways different but no less severe as he has, but suffering doesn’t automatically make a person good. It doesn’t automatically make a powerful man care for the weak—not without a reason, and so far ‘open hearted empathy’ is the only reason Claude has and Cyril is a little too pessimistic to believe it entirely.

“I thought you were the kind of guy who'd smack down just about anybody if you needed to,” Cyril says.

It’s not a fair thing to say, and Claude looks sad, rather than offended, which makes Cyril feel worse. But it doesn’t change that that’s what he’d grown up hearing about the rich and powerful. So what if he wants to test these waters? Claude is kind to him, inexplicably, but that doesn’t mean he’s a good person in a broad sense.

An assumption: His kindness just means he likes Cyril, not that he actually gives a shit about other people like him.

An assumption that is about to change: See above.

“You really are a stubborn one,” Claude mumbles. He sighs, running a hand through his already-messy hair. “All right, then. I'll tell you.”

 _Tell me what_ , Cyril almost asks, but he keeps his mouth shut.

“I swore I'd change this world so that those without status are no longer oppressed,” Claude says, and Cyril feels the breath catch in his throat. “Though you were never one of the people I was hoping to save… I never knew that there were people in Almyra in your kind of situation. I realized that my own perspective was too narrow. You helped me realize that.”

He smiles. It’s smaller than usual.

It almost reminds Cyril of—

“You’re… you’re all about saving people who are oppressed?” Cyril asks. He needs to hear him say it again. “Really?

“Is it so strange to hear that from me?”

Cyril supposes it’s not. They’ve never directly talked about it, but Claude probably knows Cyril isn’t mistaking him for a full-blooded Almyran. They both know how people like Claude are treated in the home country, that he is not exempt from being smacked down himself.

At this point it’s not a question of _if_ Claude has faced hardship, it’s a question of _why_ he seems keen to help others when he’s so secure in wealth and status himself, protected in ways Cyril never has been.

Maybe that’s all it is. Maybe he’s just someone who’s been hurt in the past and cares enough not to want that to happen to others.

Maybe Cyril will have to review his stance on ‘open hearted empathy’ as a valid reason to do things…

“It's just... You reminded me of Lady Rhea there for a second,” Cyril admits. “She always tried to save us folks without any status in the world. Like when she let an outsider like me stay at the monastery... That was nice. She brought in those kids from Remire Village when they lost their parents, and...”

He trails off.

Claude hums. “Well, I'm not a religious man,” he laughs. “I'm sure Rhea wouldn't want to be lumped in with a guy like me.”

“Lady Rhea didn't do those things 'cause the Goddess told her she should,” Cyril says gently, and of this he is absolutely certain. “She did it 'cause she wanted to.”

A series of commonalities: Green eyes, great hair, a compassion for the beaten down and oppressed, names their mothers didn’t give them, a kindness born from pain, and Cyril’s trust.

Claude smiles, and Cyril smiles back.

The last time Cyril had heard an Almyran war horn, he’d been in his teens, defending a border he once invaded from people he once served, on behalf of people who’d once indentured him

It had been a mess.

Before then, he hadn’t heard the horns since the army, and the memories of that time grate at his mind like the horns grate at his ears, hard and loud and awful.

There is an odd safety in the Empire, far from the contested border that has ruled Cyril’s life. Fort Merceus is very nearly the _last_ place he would expect to hear the echoing announcement of his homeland’s coming violence.

A fact about Claude von Riegan that Cyril should have taken into account: He has never ever been one to follow expectations.

The low drone of an Almyran war horn pierces the air. Then another. Then another.

Oh.

The little _bastard_.

Cyril, not for the first time, considers the consequences of regicide.

In the end it’s objectively a lovely little moment of unity, but it’s also the stupidest fucking idea anyone’s ever had. They win the battle handily with their new allies’ help, but the fortress is blown sky high. Cyril wonders if the Almyrans regret coming yet.

He takes pleasure in watching the rest of the Golden Deer tear Claude a new asshole for not telling them about his plans. It’s funny to watch him squirm, but their leader his slippery enough to evade most of the queries—Cyril starts to get the feeling a lot of the Deer might know more about Claude than he’d expected them too, but his heritage doesn’t explain _how_ he managed to convince several full regiments of their nation’s greatest historical enemy to just _pop over and help_

Cyril, of course, knows how. The crown is a powerful thing, sure, but a young prince does not command much respect—a name like The Undying, on the other hand, commands a little bit of fear.

There are few better motivators than that.

A consideration: Cyril is twenty, bitter, and a little spent in the common sense department. One can’t entirely blame him for the risks he takes.

He approaches General Nader at dinner one night on their way back to Garreg Mach, slamming down beside him at the fire. He realises it’s rude after the fact, that this man is a seasoned warrior and he’s… not, and in any ordinary reality he wouldn’t so much as ever laid eyes on The Undefeated, let alone fought alongside him.

Then again, he never thought he’d meet The Undying either, but that’s just more testament to how stupid weird Cyril’s life has been so far.

The general, who is far larger up close than he had seemed in the field, looks up.

“You’re not one of mine,” he says in Almyran.

“I’m Cyril,” Cyril replies in the same language, hoping he’s not as out of practice as he feels. “I’m Shamir Nevrand’s apprentice.”

He says that instead of ‘I’m with the Knights of Seiros’ because he knows these people will respect the reputation of a foreign mercenary more than they will a church.

Nader raises an eyebrow and smiles. “Oh, you’re that monastery kid, ain’t ya? Claude was telling me about you. Said you were in the border army?”

“Ten years ago,” Cyril says, bitterly, ignoring the fact Claude has apparently talked about him with Nader. The bitterness is noticed; Nader winces and the woman to the left of him, who Cyril vaguely recognises as a member of Claude’s battalion of the Immortal Corps, tuts.

“Too young,” she says in a dark tone. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one,” Cyril lies, as if one more year is going to make him seem bigger. These people, proper Almyran warriors of the ilk that drove him into service, intimidate him. The woman grimaces, though, so Cyril decides he will tolerate these two on the basis they don’t appear to throw their support behind child soldiers. Nader leans forward.

“I hear you’ve gone native, kid,” he says, and the only reason Cyril doesn’t snap at him to stop calling him ‘kid’ is because he’s heard several distinct stories about this guy and bare-handed decapitations and looking at him now he’s willing to believe they’re not stories. “What brings you to the fun side of camp? Missing home?”

“No,” Cyril says, because it’s true. “I wanted talk to you.”

“Me?” Nader repeats, incredulous to the fact someone might want to talk to him, as if he’s not incredibly famous on both sides of the mountains. “If you’re looking for lessons, kid, I’m all booked up. Plus, I’ve heard that Shamir chick is pretty wicked with a bow—better than me for sure. Don’t sell her short.”

“I’m not se—I don’t want you to _train_ me. I want you to tell me something.”

Nadir looks interested. “Okay, shoot.”

The moment of truth. “How long have you known the prince?”

Nader’s hand stills for just a second before moving again. The man takes a bite of his pheasant leg, chewing it contemplatively before answering.

“Lotta princes out there, kid,” he muses. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“The Undying,” Cyril clarifies, and then, “Claude.”

The Immortal Corps woman, who had been taking a big swig of ale, inhales about half of it. Nader gives her a sharp pound on the back and a “careful there, Farah” but doesn’t take his eyes off Cyril. They narrow, affixing him with the stare of a hardened military general seeing one of his cadets fall out of line. It makes Cyril’s skin crawl.

“Who told you that?” He asks, voice even and low. In this instant Cyril knows there’s no wrong answer besides lying.

“I figured it out myself.”

The stern mask breaks and is replaced instantly with confusion. “Wait, what? How?”

“He looks Almyran,” Cyril says simply.

“Not _that_ Almyran,” Farah says softly, echoing a sentiment Cyril had expected but doesn’t like. Nader scowls, not seeming to like it either.

“Watch it, Farah.”

“What?! He’s pale!”

Cyril thinks of quartz in dark rivers and tannin on sand. Of being too much of too many things. Of not fitting in.

“Not here he’s not,” he admits softly. “Plus, he wore his war braid at school.” He wiggles his finger by his ear to illustrate.

Nader sighs and Farah snorts.

“His mother told him to cut that shit off,” the general grumbles.

“I’m pretty sure no one other than me had a chance of knowing what it was. The only Almyrans people from Fódlan see are ones they’re already fighting.” Cyril taps the side of his head, mirroring where the braid would be. Farah nods. Nader seems to get it, too.

He sighs. “That kid gets off on putting himself in danger, I swear.”

There’s a story—maybe several stories—behind that observation that Cyril isn’t privy to but can only imagine.

“Wait so—hold on a second,” Farah points her spoon at him, “you figured out he was Almyran and immediately jumped to ‘prince’?”

“No, I mean, I knew he was Almyran from day one, but I only figured out he was a prince about halfway through the school year.”

Nader blinks, incredulous. “That long? And he doesn’t know that you know?”

“Uh, no.”

Nader sits back, a smile starting to tug at the corners of his mouth. “Amazing.”

“You’re not going to tell him, are you?”

Nader raises his hands. “Nah. He told me not to tell anyone but he didn’t say anything about other people figuring it out. Plus, it’ll be pretty entertaining to see how long you can keep it up.”

Farah snorts.

“To answer your question, though,” Nader continues, “I’ve known him his whole life. I’m good friends with his father.”

Cyril nods.

“I taught the kid combat,” Nader continues. “Bows, axes, little bit of spear work—but that’s never been his strength. Took to bows like a fish to water, though.”

Cyril nods again, remembering the weight of a guiding hand between his shoulder blades.

“I’ve been here with him for about a year now. He needed a hand and I apparently can’t say no to his stupid puppy dog face.”

“So, if you’re close… do you know if he means it?” Cyril asks.

“Means what?”

“All that stuff about breaking open the Throat…”

“Oof,” Nader chuckles. “Yeah. If there’s one thing the kiddo is dead serious about, it’s that.”

Cyril nods.

He thinks about their conversation in the tomb, about helping people who were oppressed.

 _He’d meant that too,_ Cyril thinks. _He’s really trying, isn’t he?_

“Do you… trust him?” His question is not for Nader, but for Farah.

She cocks her head. “Say again?” 

“I heard a lot of stories about him growing up,” Cyril admits, picking at his stew. “Stuff like… he’s a demon or a ghoul or whatever. I was surprised that he managed to get you guys to come”

“Well, he’s obviously _not_ a monster,” Farah says. “But sometimes it’s valuable to be feared. We in the Corps respect him for who he is, but that respect took time to foster—he’s one of the better commanders I have ever worked under, but he will need to prove himself tenfold to get the same veneration as his brothers.”

Nader laughs without humour. “Yeah. My men don’t know him that well yet. They’ll come around in time—but they cut their teeth in the same gossipy border towns you probably did, kid. It’s hard for them to see him as a person and not an idea, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of them only came along because they’re a little scared.”

Cyril’s blood turns cold.

“Wh—”

“Hey, Cyril! I see you’ve met Nader.”

Cyril credits his already very tense posture for his ability to not rocket three feet in the air as Claude’s voice sounds behind him.

“Hey, kiddo!” Nader greets, slipping easily back into Fódlani. “I’m just getting to know your troops.”

Claude looks like he wants to say something for a moment, but seems to think better of it, and smiles instead.

“That’s great—you’re not scaring him though, are you?” Cyril bites down his indignation at the idea, but he doesn’t even get a chance to accidentally voice it before Claude keeps talking. "I was actually looking for _you_ , Cyril.”

“Me? Why?”

“I want to run something by you. You mind if I steal him, Nader?”

Nader waves his hand in a dismissing motion that is way too informal for addressing royalty, and Cyril can’t tell if that’s part of their cover or if Nader is just Like That.

Claude snatches up a bowl of stew and the two of them wander back towards the Alliance camp, but halfway there he leads them to the left, down a hidden trail to a little clearing.

There’s a creek and some trees, and Claude ducks around to lean under one of them. He begins to eat in silence.

Cyril stands there. nervously, holding his own bowl. “Uh. What did you need me for?”

“Oh, nothing,” Claude says lightly, “I just thought you might want to leave.”

“Why would I want to leave?”

“It looked like whatever you were talking about was stressing you out,” Claude observed. “I know you probably have some pretty shitty memories of people like Nader. I can only apologise if any of them make you uncomfortable.”

Cyril doesn’t know what to say, so he sits down and looks at his untouched food.

“How… how can you care so much about them when they don’t care about you?”

There’s a pause.

“Elaborate?”

“I know—I _knew_ a boy…like you… in the army,” Cyril explains.

“What? Devilishly good-looking?”

Cyril ignores him. “His dad was a Goneril soldier and his mom was a healer from the town next to mine. He was born in the war.”

Silence.

Cyril stops talking, trying to gather his thoughts, but the distant shouts from the Almyran camp send daggers into his spine. It’s only when he becomes aware of Claude quietly taking a seat beside him, stew placed gently between them, that he finds his voice again.

“He looked like you—too much Fódlan for Almyra and too much the other way too—the older boys always said he wasn’t right, that he had something wrong in his brain ‘cause of it, and he wasn’t allowed to fight.”

Claude grimaces, and Cyril wonders if he’s heard that one before. “What happened to him?”

“I dunno. I guess he’s probably dead. Nobody liked him. You don’t last long out west if no one likes you.”

“Did you?” The next question is just as slow and steady as the last. “Like him, that is?”

Cyril closes his eyes.

“I didn’t talk to him,” he admits. That was almost worse. That… indifference.

“What was his name?”

“Malik.”

Claude takes a deep breath, and Cyril finally looks at him. He’s got his head tilted back, staring at the stars above them.

“This isn’t coming from nowhere, is it? Did someone say something?”

This would be an _awful_ moment to reveal what he knows, even though it would be easy, so Cyril shakes his head.

“Nader sorta suggested his troops don’t trust you much,” he says.

“That’s probably true.”

“I’m sorry,” Cyril says. “You’re a lot tougher than me if you still wanna help people like that.”

Claude closes his eyes.

“You wanted to know how I do it?”

“Y-Yeah?”

“Well. Whenever I start to question myself, I just think of the prairies after the first rains of the season,” Claude says, and all sense of humour is gone from his voice in an instant, replaced with something soft and measured. “When the grass is so dry that the dew sticks to it. The fields hold onto the rain like it’s been so long without water they’ve forgotten what they’re supposed to do with it besides just… holding. And when the sun finally rises, for just that moment, the plains shine like diamonds. Like the stars have fallen to earth.”

The sounds of the camp fade away. At once, Cyril is not in the camp in the dark of night, he’s standing on the hilltop by his childhood home, looking out at the mountains to the west and the stretching prairies to the east, greeting the rising sun.

A sea of grass, rippling like the greatest waves of an ocean. Him, adrift in its embrace but not lost. Young and hopeful.

“I… I remember.”

“It’s beautiful. I miss it a lot.”

“Hm.” Cyril doesn’t agree, but he doesn’t disagree either.

“You know, I could ask you the same question,” Claude muses. “Why did _you_ spend all your time cleaning the monastery, even though no one there liked you?”

Cyril feels his throat constrict. “Lady Rhea—”

“Right, no, _she_ cared about you for sure, but the _rest_ of Fódlan doesn’t really have a lot of tolerance for you… or me, but I guess I can get by a little easier. It was sorta just her, at least for a while.”

“So?”

“So, she was your home, right?”

“I… suppose.”

Claude retrieves his bowl and takes another bite of stew. “You see? Home is just… what you love. That can be a person, and idea, a place… home is where you love to be. I love to be here, with the Deer and Teach, and Judith and you, and I love to be there. There’s no rule against that. I want to protect and serve my homes as best I can. That’s why I help these people… because at the end of the day they’re my diamonds in the grass, and I never want to give that up.”

Cyril hadn’t really loved the monastery, not in the beginning. He had loved Lady Rhea. Now, though, he thinks he loves more things than just her. He loves fishing with Flayn and reading with Lysithea and training with Shamir. He loves working with the Golden Deer and he loves helping the Professor. He loves talking to Claude about things he can’t talk to anyone else about.

In that sense he might even love _Almyra_ , or at least the Almyra that Claude paints for him, glowing like precious stones and full of light and potential—he might have never _stopped_ loving that Almyra.

As if reading his thoughts, Claude says, “I hope one day you’ll be able to find a home in Almyra again, I really do. But you have a good one here.”

That surprises Cyril a little. “You think? I… sometimes I think you want me to drop everything and go back, with how much you seem to like it.”

Claude chuckles. “I’d be lying if I said I don’t hope to see you go back there one day, but not if you’re not ready. That’s why I yanked you out of their side of camp—you looked like you were about to explode. So… no. What you have here is good. Shamir is good people. So are Seteth and Flayn. Even Rhea—”

“ _Lady_ Rhea.”

Claude rolls his eyes. “ _Lady_ Rhea, sure. She was good to you?”

It’s a question, like he’s double-checking.

“Yeah. She _is_ good to me.”

Claude reaches over to pat Cyril on the knee.

“Sometimes we have to go at our own pace on our own paths,” he says. “But it’s okay to take our time to figure stuff out—to find where we fit and belong and who we want to be—the world will still be here when we’re done. Wherever you end up is going to be a good place, Cyril, I’m certain of that.”

“What about you? Where are you going to end up?”

Claude smiles, a little tired looking. “Somewhere I can make a difference. That’s here for now. But maybe after the war is over that’ll be somewhere else—I haven’t told anyone else that by the way so don’t say anything.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

Claude sighs. “It’s slow going, but one day I want to live in a world where things are different. One day there won’t be anyone treated like you—anyone treated like me or your Malik—people will go back and forth as they please, find places in the world wherever they want.”

He lets the statement hang in the air, and Cyril says nothing for a very long time.

“That’s… _really_ idealistic,” he says finally.

“Ha!” Claude barks a laugh. “I’ll have you know that ‘idealistic’ is my middle name.”

“I thought your middle name was ‘von’,” Cyril says.

Claude chuckles softly and pops a spoonful of stew into his mouth.

Cyril narrows his eyes. “What’s so funny?”

“Wuh, y… hol’ on—” Claude forces himself to swallow his mouthful, and stares at Cyril in open shock, “—you were being serious? You think my middle name is ‘von’?”

 _Oh shit, it’s not?_ Cyril thinks, bewildered and desperately trying not to show it.

“No,” he lies.

There’s a long beat of silence.

Claude snorts, and then he laughs. He keeps laughing.

“Stop!” Cyril whines, but Claude doesn’t listen. He laughs harder than Cyril has ever seen him laugh before.

“Stop! What the fuck is it then!?” Cyril shouts, scooting around to kick Claude in the ribs. He manages to draw a startled _oof_ from the guy, but that doesn’t do much to halt his amusement.

“It just means _from_ , Cyril!” He manages to splutter out, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “It means _Claude-from-Riegan_.”

“What!? How was I supposed to know that?!” Cyril cries.

Claude wrests down another fit of very unmanly giggles. “Buddy, _ninety-percent of us_ are called ‘someone-von-somewhere’. Did you think we all had the same middle name?”

“I dunno! I guess!?”

Claude cackles. “You’re the best, bud.”

Cyril whacks him again.

“Shut up,” he says fondly.

The new armour is fucking cool. The wyvern, with scales like pearls, is even fucking cooler.

Cyril will die before he tells Claude either of those things.

“What would you change about Almyra, if you could?” Nader asks one day.

They’re sparring off to the side of the camp. While they are still days from the city, Enbarr seems to loom in Cyril’s periphery.

Nader has been adamant since their first conversation that he’s not training Cyril—those days are, according to the man himself, far behind him—but neither of them are blind to the fact it hadn’t been until a few weeks of “sparring” that Cyril had felt confident enough to add an axe to his side in battle.

“I don’t think I could change anything,” Cyril retorts, parrying Nader’s swing. The force of the impact is enough to rattle his teeth.

“I didn’t ask what you _could_ change,” Nader counters, bringing his axe up for an underhanded swipe. Cyril deftly steps out of the way. “Good footwork—No. I asked what you _would_ change. Humour me.”

He raises his hand to stop the fight, and Cyril lowers his axe.

He bites his lip.

“I guess… The border territories are full of war orphans and poverty. I guess I’d want to make… Orphanages? Start giving proper childcare… and basic education, like reading and shit. You generals like to talk about the country’s ‘bright future’ but how bright can it be when all your kids are sick and hungry?”

Nader nods. “That’s noble. I can’t say I fully agree with the way the western border is run, either. That’s all down to the governors. If it makes you feel better, I don’t employ soldiers under sixteen.”

“That’s still young,” Cyril grumbles.

“Hm. You care an awful lot for someone who insists they’re done with the place.”

Cyril looks away. Nader laughs.

“You’re pricklier than a hedgehog in hiding, you know that?” Nader “You’ve got the ear of the prince, kid. Those kind of goals could be a lot more manageable than you think!”

“I doubt that,” Cyril mutters. “What’s he gonna do about anything as _fourth prince?_ ”

“Sure,” Nader walks over to the edge of their training area to grab a towel to wipe his face. “He might not be able to do much _now_ , but what do princes turn into?”

The statement hits Cyril like a ton of bricks. His gaze snaps to Nader’s, and he knows his jaw has dropped, but he can’t seem to pick it up.

“He’s… he’s not gonna try and _claim the throne_ , is he?”

Nader shrugs lazily, but the implications of his words cannot be brushed off.

It’s an absolutely insane mental image, and it’s currently hitting Cyril over the head like a sack of bricks.

“Youngest sons ascend more often than you’d think. Our current king was the second youngest of his brothers.” Nader tosses the towel to Cyril, who just holds it limply in one hand.

“But… the other princes ain’t really… the best people, are they?” He remembers too late that Nader probably knows the other princes personally, and flushes red. “I-I’m not—They won’t just _let him_ , will they?”

Nader smirks. “Probably not but consider who we’re talking about here! If anyone’s gonna be able to swipe the throne out from under guys like that it’ll be Khalid. Boy’s as stubborn as a pack-wyvern and twice as feisty.”

Cyril tries to picture Claude as King of Almyra. The thought had’t even occurred to him. What would he look like, dressed in the ceremonial garb of the nation’s highest commander? All silks and brocade and gold. Sitting on the Sun Throne. Eating… fruit or something? He doesn’t actually know what kings do in their free time… he assumes it’s be fed grapes by hand but probably not.

“Forget ear of the _prince_ ,” Nader says with a beaming grin. He claps a hand on Cyril shoulder. “You might very well have the ear of the next king, kid. You should start thinking about how you want to use that position.”

Cyril can’t even fathom it. His brain whirls. “E-even if I did… he’s not gonna listen to someone like _me_.”

“Listen,” Nader lowers his voice, even though they’re well out of camp and away from prying ears. “Khalid is the youngest in his family by a pretty big margin, and he’s only liked by, at most, half of them. Tiana never had kids after him—not after how he was treated—so he only has experience _being_ a little brother, not _having_ one.”

His meaning starts to sink in. Cyril frowns. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” The general raises an eyebrow. “He sure does talk about you a lot. He likes you.”

“I’m nothing like that to him.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” _Is he?_

“And what is he to you?”

Cyril says nothing, even though he knows the answer.

In Almyra, armour is broken in like one would break a horse, and wear and tear are signs of prestige on a person as well as their clothes.

The garb of the Barbarossa is broken in when the capital of the Empire falls. The crimson of its wearer stains it like ink. Claude stands at the foot of a throne that isn’t his, heaving breaths and clutching his side like he’s trying to hold himself together, but he doesn’t fall. Not like the body at the professor’s feet. Not like the long-suffering nation they are standing in.

Cyril wonders when Claude stopped looking like a prince and started looking like a king.

It twists his stomach a little, just for a moment, because he Does Not Like the king as a rule—it’s a very important part of him, that hatred of the king—and he is quite sure that kings, whoever they may be, are not supposed to give a shit about people like him either. That’s just the way of things.

And if that’s the way of things, then what is this for? It hurts him to look at Claude and ponder the inevitable distance that will surely form between them when he finally stands by a throne that belongs to him. Because the words ‘king’ and ‘uncaring’ are married in Cyril’s mind—have been since he was young—and he doesn’t want to see the man in front of him in that light, the man who claps hands on his shoulder and lines up his shots for him and gives him his desserts at every fancy dinner they’re forced to attend together. He doesn’t want ‘Claude’ to become synonymous with ‘uncaring’.

But then they move out. There is work to be done—people to find and people to bury—and Claude meets his eyes and smiles.

He doesn’t look like a king anymore—walking up to Cyril’s side with a crooked grin and an arm around his shoulder and a hand reaching up to ruffle his hair—he looks like something else entirely. Something gentler.

Cyril gives his shoulder a squeeze in return.

A small piece of clairvoyance: In the eyes of history, King Khalid the Unifier, first of his name, Heaven Piercer and Dawnbringer (who has not yet earned these titles but will do so soon) will be remembered as one of the greatest rulers the nation of Almyra will ever see.

The most important thing he will ever be, in the eyes of Cyril: his friend.

Lady Rhea looks tired. Cyril wonders if it’s new, or if she’s always been that way and he’s only learned to notice it now.

She takes his hands in hers, and though she looks ragged and a little more human than she ever has before, her hands hold familiar warmth.

“You’ve grown so much,” she says softly.

“Only a few inches,” Cyril says, laughing lightly. She smiles at him.

The smile falls a little. “I am so sorry I could not be there for you all,” she says in a sad voice. “I fear I left you adrift.”

“You didn’t have a choice. And we’re okay, don’t worry.”

Lady Rhea reaches up, cupping his cheek in one hand, and her eyes scan his face like they’re searching. “You have found a path to walk on your own.” It’s not a question.

Cyril remembers another pair of green eyes, another conversation not so long ago.

“Yeah, maybe,” he says. “Dunno if it’ll be the one I stay on.”

Lady Rhea smiles again, soft and warm. “No matter what,” she says. “I will be proud of you.”

The day after they get back from Enbarr, Cyril finds a sash in his room.

It’s of far nicer make than _anything_ his dad could have possibly made for him in a universe where Cyril came of age in comfort. It’s a deep forest green, woven through with sharp patterns of entwining golds and whites and reds. He brushes a hand over the fabric, feeling how soft it is—how _new_ it is—not a hand-me down or recycled swatch, like so many of the young men in his town had received, but something made specially and _purposefully_ for him.

It’s folded up at the foot of his bed, tied together with simple twine. There is a note on top.

His hands are shaking as he picks it up.

_Cyril,_

_It’s a bit late, I know, but it’s your fault for not telling me about your birthday!_

_I just think it’s a nice tradition you never got to experience. Don’t feel like you have to wear it, though. Not now or ever, if you don’t want to._

_Like I said before, things like this will still be here when you’re done._

_C (from) R._

Cyril finds him alone in the war room with Byleth, which is good because Byleth won’t care if Cyril dashes in and throws his arms around Claude. Which is exactly what he does.

An incomplete list of things Cyril _doesn’t_ miss about Almyra: dry season, war, snakes, a culture of glorified violence, itchy bugs, the monarchy (pending revision).

A complete list of things he _does_ miss: sunrises over the prairies, baklava, his family.

He buries his face in Claude’s shoulder and tries and fails not to think about that last one.

He thinks about what he remembers and what he doesn’t. He remembers his mom’s voice but not his dad’s, and he remembers his dad’s face but can’t recall the colour of his mom’s eyes. It’s an awful thing and it guts him to his core—that he can’t remember what it felt like to be held, and—

Arms come up around his back and hold him tight.

“Hey there, bud,” Claude says softly. “What’s this for?”

“Thank you,” Cyril says when he trusts himself to speak.

“Oh?” Claude whispers, laughter playing on his voice. “The sash… or…?”

“Not just that,” Cyril mumbles. “Just… everything. Thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for listening.”

They pull apart, and Cyril blinks away tears.

“I’ll always listen to you, Cyril,” Claude says. “And what’s to give up on? You don’t owe me a thing.”

“I… I don’t know if I’ll wear it. I dunno if I’m ready.”

“That’s okay. I just wanted you to have it.”

Cyril’s voice is smaller as he says, “I never thought I’d get one… but I guess…”

A tradition: On the day a young man comes of age, his father or another male family member presents him with a gift—usually a sash—traditionally custom made, to represent a transition into an independent future.

An assumption: It’s hard to follow such a tradition when you don’t have a family.

A misconception: Cyril doesn’t have a family.

“What I’m tryin to say is—well, I guess—” Cyril laughs. “I’m not really good at words… but… you get it, right?”

“Yeah,” Claude says truthfully. “I get it.”

The farewell that history will remember: The former Duke Riegan abdicates his title in front of gathered nobles and the new Archbishop, formally bequeathing all his lands and assets to be redistributed by the crown. They shake hands, they bow, and the nobles in attendance pretend they’re entirely sad to see the man go.

The farewell that history will forget: Later that same evening, in a dim, smoky tavern on the waterfront that sells venison roast and pints for half-price on weekdays, a gathering of friends gets absolutely, utterly _shit-faced._

The Golden Deer and their closest allies pack the place tight, huddled around tables and benches and downing pints until the torches buzz soft around them.

Claude clambers up onto one of the tables. He, like almost everyone in attendance, has systematically shed his outerwear over the course of the evening and stands above the crowd with his sash over his shoulders like a cape and only one boot, but he still clears his throat with all the bearing of a king. The tavern falls silent.

“SPEECH!” Someone cries out from the back, which draws out a laugh.

“Absolutely not!” Claude announces, swaying slightly where he stands. He raises his tankard. “My silver tongue has left me, my friends! Drowned tragically in the house ale!”

“Boo!”

“Yes! Boo! But in its place, I shall weave you dearest Deer o’ mine a farewell like no other! I wanna thank you for the best—” he starts to count on his fingers with some obvious effort “—Alright! Cool! I’ve totally fuckin’ forgotten how long I’ve been here but you guys definitely made it great! Even you, Lorenz!”

Lorenz scoffs and calls out, “Are you actually going to do something, or are you just going to pontificate up there like you _haven’t_ lost your job?”

“Shut up!” Claude crouches down to poke Lorenz between the eyes. There’s a squawk from the older man that makes Cyril think Claude might have missed. “I’m tryin’ to make a fuckin’ moment!”

Claude stand up, dips into a dramatic, sweeping bow to his friends, and as he straightens back up, he does the last thing Cyril would have ever expected; He starts singing.

_“Of all the comrades that e'er I had—”_

Cyril doesn’t recognise the song, but he assumes it must be a Fódlan thing—or maybe an Alliance thing, since Seteth looks completely lost—because most everyone else seems to have a reaction. Laughter and a chorus of ‘aww’s ring out and are hastily hushed. Even Marianne hides a smile behind the tankard of light ale she’s been nursing all night.

Cyril takes a sip of his drink as Claude continues.

_“—They're sorry for my going away—”_

“Nah! Good riddance!” Leonie hollers. Claude flips her off and keeps singing.

_“—And all the Hildas that e'er I had—"_

“Hey!”

_“—She’d wish me one more day to stay.”_

He shoots her a sloppy wink and Hilda turns as pink as her hair.

Everyone joins in after that. There’s no accompaniment, like there would be at the church or a noble party, but it’s better that way. It’s just friends and their voices, loud with ale and wine, and the stomping, steady rhythm of hands beating tables and boots on the floor.

Cyril doesn’t know the words, but he joins in on the beat, and listens to his friends—his home—weave a drunken song of farewells, of good nights and company. It’s almost mournful, despite the smiles on the faces of its singers. It reminds Cyril of Almyran funeral songs, which are as much songs of celebration as they are goodbyes.

For the first time, the fact this is a goodbye actually begins to sink in.

A fact about Cyril, and the things he is and isn’t: Cyril is a pragmatic person. He does not believe in things he can’t see. 

But he is taking drinks from The Undefeated and buying them for a Goneril, traipsing around with a sash he never thought he’d receive, listening to Fódlani songs on the lips of a foreign prince, and dancing with the faces of a new era. He leans against an ale-sticky table in a borderless moment in time and thinks that he might be able to see a world here worth believing in. Even if for a small moment.

He’s going to miss Claude very much.

Lysithea sneaks up to his side, tugging him down to her level and whispering what he realises are the next lines into his ear. _“So, fill to me the parting glass, and drink a health whate’er befalls.”_

Her flushed smile is nothing short of blinding, and Cyril hides his nervousness behind the song, repeating her lyrics as the rest of the group reaches them.

Claude somehow hears him over the din, his head snapping around to zone in on the new addition to their drunken choir. The grin that breaks across his face is the realest one Cyril has maybe ever seen him wear.

They sing, off-key and a little slurred, but not caring in the slightest. The air is warm, and Cyril’s cheeks hurt from smiling.

_“—Then gently rise and softly call—”_

“SMASH IT!” Raphael yells, and Claude, drunk enough to comply, smashes his tankard on the floor, sending glass flying everywhere.

 _Terrible for the floor,_ Cyril thinks.

The Deer holler in excitement, and the final words of their song spill out as laughter-filled cries, rather than anything tuneful.

“GOOD NIGHT,” they shout in unison, “AND JOY BE TO YOU ALL!”

With no warning, Byleth hops up on the table-top, sweeping Claude’s feet out from under him and catching him in a hilarious approximation of a dip from a fancy dance.

The entire tavern erupts.

An observation from Cyril, who notices things others don’t: Claude is crying.

A reason for noticing: Cyril is crying, too.

The night rolls on, and Cyril has work to do in the morning. He always has work, he likes it that way, but part of him wishes he could stay a little longer.

He finds Claude among the crowd, sitting with Hilda and a few others, and kicks him in the shin to get his attention.

“I’m heading out,” he says, and he watches the smile slip from Claude’s lips.

“Oh? For real?” His silver tongue really has left him, apparently. “I guess, uh—”

“Yeah. I… I’m going to miss you, idiot,” Cyril says. “Like a lot.”

Claude chuckles. “Someone sounds mad.”

“Yeah I hate it,” Cyril rolls his eyes. “How _dare_ you make me care about you.”

Claude winks. “My greatest scheme so far.”

Cyril looks at the floor, feeling any good cheer slip from the conversation. It leaves a sadness behind that is far less ephemeral. “I guess this is goodbye.”

“Only for now,” Claude assures. “I’ll be back.”

“You’d better. I’m _not_ coming to you.”

“Not even if I ask _really_ nicely?”

Well…

Cyril has never been to the capital city, but he’d grown up hearing stories about its beauty and size. He bets the palace is _gorgeous_ … maybe if he plays his cards right he could get Claude to let him sit on the throne.

“Alright. We’ll call it a maybe then,” he concedes. Claude beams and stumbles to his feet, dusting himself off like he didn’t almost drunkenly faceplant into the table. Cyril rolls his eyes again.

“That’s what I like to hear, bud.” Claude takes a step back and holds out his hand.

Cyril knows what he’s supposed to do. He’s supposed to grip his forearm. It’s a gesture for brothers-in-arms, comrades and friends. So, it’s exactly what he does.

“Goodbye,” Claude says in Almyran. It’s the first time Cyril’s ever heard him speak it.

“Goodbye,” Cyril replies in kind.

A note: Cyril is many things. He is vindictive, earnest, good at archery, and probably a little bit in love with Lysithea, amongst other things.

But there is one thing he has only learned to be _recently_ , and only really for the sake of the man in front of him, and that is someone who takes unique pleasure in pushing his fucking luck as far as he can for entertainment.

If he doesn’t do this now, he probably never will.

Cyril lets go of Claude’s arm takes a big step back, still facing him, and bows low. He doesn’t do it in the Alliance style, but rather the Almyran style. He holds his hand up, palm facing inwards, and bows as far down as he can without falling over—a low as possible for the highest ranked member of society here. The hitch in Claude’s breathing makes the uncomfortable posture worth it.

“Safe travels, Your Highness,” he says in Almyran, then repeats words he’s only heard in stories—a custom he never thought he’d ever have the connections nor cause to exercise: “May the Sun Throne rise to meet you—”

Claude makes a strangled sort of squeak, which might very well be the most satisfying noise Cyril has ever heard.

“—and my many blessings for your ascension carry you.”

He smirks, looks up, and casts his eyes for the first time in his life upon the face of a truly speechless Claude.

His eye even twitches. That’s pretty funny.

“Aw! That was nice, Cyril,” Hilda chirps, either oblivious to or not caring about Claude’s sudden change in demeanour. “Was that, like, a goodbye or something?”

Cyril shrugs. “Sure.”

Claude splutters. “Cyril—Wait—”

Cyril turns to Hilda. “I’m staying with Shamir tonight,” he says. “So, I’ll catch up with you and the others tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Hilda says, then turns around to elbow Claude in the ribs with all the force of a woman who’s been wielding a greataxe every day for the last year. Claude doubles over. “Say _thank you,_ Claude.”

Claude looks up at Cyril, an expression of pure confusion on his face.

“Th-thank you.”

Cyril smirks and turns to leave. He’s almost through the door when a shout stops him.

Claude is on the table again, looking disheveled and frantic. His eyes are wide, and his voice is desperate as he yells across the tavern.

“How long have you known!?” he calls out, slipping into Almyran. This draws attention from the crowd, who are used to their former leader being rowdy but are yet to have gotten acclimated to him shouting in foreign languages.

Nader, who is doing a line of shots at the bar with Judith, follows Claude’s line of sight to Cyril, realises what’s happening, and spits out his liquor as he falls into a fit of booming laughter.

Claude looks to the general with an expression of pure betrayal, to which Nader just puts up his hands and shakes his head. He snaps his gaze back to Cyril, wide-eyed.

“Cyril! How long!?”

A slow grin slips onto Cyril’s face, sly and so very unlike him. He cups his hands around his mouth to call back:

“The whole time, idiot!”

A final reminder: Cyril has good eyes. He uses them.

A final fact: Cyril will remember the look on Claude’s face for the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sure be feeling some kinda way, team. #CyrilRights
> 
> Intsys... let him move past feelings of indebtedness to Rhea... let him make independent decisions concerning his future... answer my emails, Intsys... don't hang up on me...
> 
> The drinking song at the end is (a slightly rearranged version of) The Parting Glass, a traditional Scottish song sung at the end of gatherings and festivities as a goodbye between friends. It’s a very bittersweet tune that can be really upbeat or really sad depending. [Hozier](https://open.spotify.com/track/0WxxSbsSHMoUK1uvWuMEbT?si=8xxvwMiUTRa08TkXBh-SnQ) and [The High Kings](https://open.spotify.com/track/4OdhXJ8qx91NJLU8C69RG7?si=tN4KqSu2T52fyMzT9Kejsg) have very good versions of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Find me on tumblr @fizzityuck, twitter @claregormy, or hanging out the passenger side of my best friend's ride.


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